East Indian Company...(6/8)

Imagine Walmart becomes the governer of a country. Unimaginable? But can you imagine how a trading company could become a governmental body in the 17th century, and the company is called the East Indian Company (a.k.a. John Company or The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies)...The Company was granted by the British Empire exclusively right to all trades in the East India from 1600 and this began its not only monopolistic but also governmental business in the East in the following two centuries. The Company's troops arrived in India for the first time at the port of Surat, in 1608, and it traded mainly silver, Indian tea and cotton and later opium produced in India to China (and Hong Kong). A pioneer business model of trading business, and its comparative advantage to trade exclusively enabled the Company to dominate 15% of the total import from India to Britain in 1720. With the profitable revenue margin, the Company acquired influential power in Britain and it developed its own military and administration force in India. It transformed itself to a ruling enterprise, and its military officials, Robert Clive, defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah , at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, rewarding himself the throne of being the First Governor in the city. This was something existed during the era of colonialism. 23 factories were built during its development of first 40 years in India, and it possessed dominant control in cities including Surat, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, and later the majority of India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canton as well as the Java region. The time was still the embryonic stage of capitalism, but the financial strength of the Company demonstrated the always-true phenonmenon of the correlating power obtained. Endorsed by the Britain Empire, the Company became the governors of India and controlled the sea trade in Asia. During its history of two and a half centuries, it formulated the administrative model for Britain in their thereafter bureaucratic system, demonstrated the trading model and the economic problem of monopoly, imported to India and China the inventions of the West during the Industrial Revolution and catalysed the evolution of colonialism. The First Opium War in China was caused by the quarrel between the Company and the local government in China. Quoted from the Times Magazine, "The Company accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other company ever attempted and as such is ever likely to attempt in the years to come."